Publications / 2020 Proceedings of the 37th ISARC, Kitakyushu, Japan

VRGlare: A Virtual Reality Lighting Performance Simulator for real-time Three-Dimensional Glare Simulation and Analysis

Kieran May, James Walsh, Ross Smith, Ning Gu and Bruce Thomas
Pages 32-39 (2020 Proceedings of the 37th ISARC, Kitakyushu, Japan, ISBN 978-952-94-3634-7, ISSN 2413-5844)
Abstract:

Lighting performance simulators play an important role in the architectural design process, as it provides the means to address lighting design issues early within the design stage of a construction project life-cycle. Currently, several lighting performance simulators provide support for glare simulation and analysis; however, they are primarily limited to two-dimensional desktop displays and not capable of simulating glare in real-time. Furthermore, the quantitative data produced from these simulators consist of reports, complex numerical data-sets, two-dimensional graphs, and charts, which creates a divergence between the data produced and the three-dimensional context of the building. As a result, analysis of glare data generally requires specialists such as experienced architects who have an extensive background in interpreting these two-dimensional data-sets. In order to overcome the aforementioned issues, we present VRGlare: an immersiveVirtualReality lighting performance simulator capable of real-time glare simulation and analysis. In addition to semi-realistic lighting renderings, this research proposes four visualisation techniques to represent glare within an immersive three-dimensional context. We also present two multi-sensory approaches designed to re-create the physical discomfort that occurs when experiencing glare. This paper provides an overview of the developed simulator which includes the hardware, software, algorithms, visualisations, and multi-sensory representation of glare discomfort.

Keywords: Virtual Reality; Lighting Performance Simulation; Immersive Glare Visualisation; Glare Analysis; Building Information Modelling